This is never fun to report, even though I’ve had to do it many times in the past few days: my wife and I are separating.

There are a lot of details you don’t need to hear about, as is always the case when people end a five-year relationship, but the upshot is that I will be living in the current apartment with my roommate and ward, Valerie, and she will temporarily live with her parents before moving into her grandmother’s old house.

I’m understandably pretty blue these days, but my friends have been a huge help for me. I’m still carving; not out of any grim determination to press on regardless, but because it makes me feel better.